Howdy folks. I bring major good news. Did you ever idly wish that Halo had come with a Firefight mode like we got in later games? Well, a long time Halo contact of mine has been busy creating just such a thing, which I gather should work with CEA on the PC (Steam) release of MCC. There'll be five maps plus a night variant of one, and you'll be able to play various Firefight game types, tackling wave after wave of covies, or even Flood or Sentinels. You can look forward to lots of glorious weapon options, including a very tasty (and toasty) flamethrower, and there'll be skull options too.

With the release being possibly just a few weeks away now, he's started putting out some footage. Specifically we have the following video showing a load of fuel rod action in the T&R hangar, which has now been equipped with handy grav-lifts to let you whizz up to the upper levels:

You'll notice that the Marines there were invincible. Good job too, or they would've got wiped out in seconds (you know how those bozos are). This way, they continue to provide atmosphere.

Over the past many months I've been privy to action footage for other maps too. One such is the second snowfield area in AOTCR, where you normally encounter two Wraiths. Fabulous sniper rifle potential there, among other things. Another map is the rockslide area of level 2 (yay!), and apparently you'll even be able to fly a Banshee about in there. He recently mentioned raising the map's ceiling to provide more space for that. Sounds good!

Yet another map takes in some beachfront area of SC outside the main facility, and another comprises the opening swamp area of level 6. No doubt you can expect some action vids for these various other maps soon.

Among the novelties, I think you're also going to have a drivable Wraith as an option. Hopefully that feature is still in.

In regard to game types, here's the roster of pre-defined ones, last I heard:

Firefight Classic - the standard Firefight experience.
Sniperfight - infinite sniper rifle, pistol, and grenades.
FRGfight - infinite fuel rod, needler, and grenades.
Rocketfight - infinite rockets, flamethrower, and grenades.
Gruntpocalypse - 100% Grunts!
Beakageddon - a lot of Jackals. All of them.
Phantoms - mostly normal Firefight rules, but all enemies are invisible.
Fistfight - player can only use the skull/flag and must punch enemies to get shields back.
Floodfight - normal Firefight rules but against Flood.
Robocalypse - normal Firefight rules but against Sentinels.
Fiesta - lots of randomness going on, making for silly fun.

Seems to me that this Firefight mod is something rather major to look forward to, if you're a CE nut with the requisite set-up. I don't have that set-up myself (I'm still slaying covies on ye olde Xbox), but the combat potential looks glorious and I know that I'd have a field day with it. I do at least hope to see people uploading lots of fun-filled action vids I can enjoy, in the months to come.

PS: This is the same guy who joined me for a talk-through of H1's first level years ago, in a series I sadly never got to continue. He's a bit of a multi-alias chappie, but is Mango0fDoom on YouTube. Don't know what his thing is with apocalyptic fruit, but there we go. Drop him a comment why don't you?